


I will hold them for you

by brickmaster



Series: Slice of Clack Event [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Hair Braiding, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Zack Fair Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brickmaster/pseuds/brickmaster
Summary: Claudia passes down the entirety of her knowledge and Cloud takes to it easily. There are a few others in Nibelheim who practice Nibel braiding and Cloud feels a flicker of pride at sharing something so unique with so few. He’s become increasingly isolated from others his age—partly his own doing, partly from Tifa’s accident—and he finds comfort in being able to say so much with so little.(Cloud learns how to say a lot to the people who matter most)
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Series: Slice of Clack Event [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809385
Comments: 44
Kudos: 282
Collections: Slice of Clack: July 2020





	I will hold them for you

**Author's Note:**

> Slice of Clack—Week 1: Intimacy.
> 
> This is my first entry and first time participating in an event! I chose the prompt "love languages" and took many, many liberties. While this fic doesn't revolve around established zakkura, there's intimacy abound. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Please check out all the other amazing work for the event here: [@SliceOfClack](https://twitter.com/SliceofClack)
> 
> As always, a special thank you to the Yearning Fuel that is "I will" by Mitski.

Cloud is six years old when his mother teaches him about Nibel braiding. 

It’s early morning, fog rolling from Mt. Nibel onto the rooftops, and Claudia wraps Cloud in a thick blanket as she guides him to the front steps of their home. They take a seat, Cloud’s small shoulders bolstered on either side by Claudia’s legs. She begins to gently run her hands through his hair and his eyes drift shut at the sensation. 

He feels a slight tug and follows the motion to see Claudia’s hand pinching a neatly plaited section of his hair. Cloud strains his eyes and catches something dark blue woven between the pale strands. 

“Braiding hair is a very old tradition, a very old language, widespread throughout Gaia. Nibelheim has its own dialect and it’s one I learned from _my_ mother,” Claudia’s voice is steady as her hands deftly tie a knot at the end. “Other braiding dialects use all sorts of things but _we_ use dyed wool.” 

Claudia’s arms curl around him, hugging him firmly against her chest. There’s a soft, familiar pressure against his hair which he knows to be a kiss. He wriggles further into his mother’s embrace. 

“What does mine say?” Cloud asks and Claudia smiles, resting her chin on top of his head. 

“It means ‘precious’,” Claudia says, tugging very gently on the short braid. 

Cloud hums, twists his hands out from beneath the blanket to fiddle with her fingers. “What does precious mean?”

Claudia chuckles, bright and airy in the still morning and curls ever closer until Cloud can barely feel the cold. 

“It means that you’re very special.”

~+~

Claudia passes down the entirety of her knowledge and Cloud takes to it easily. There are a few others in Nibelheim who practice Nibel braiding and Cloud feels a flicker of pride at sharing something so unique with so few. He’s become increasingly isolated from others his age—partly his own doing, partly from Tifa’s accident—and he finds comfort in being able to say so much with so little. 

~+~

When he decides to enlist, Claudia guides him to the front steps of their house and sits with him under a swath of starlight. His shoulders bump awkwardly against the sides of her legs but he feels six years old again when she begins carding her fingers through his hair. 

“You’re sure?” Her voice barely drifts over the chirping of crickets. Cloud can feel her carefully weaving meaning into the tangle of his hair. 

Her hands stop after a time, coming to cup the bony slope of his shoulders. He moves to cover her hands with his own, arms crossing loosely over his heart. Claudia sighs, pulls him back tightly against her chest. 

“Of course you are. My precious boy.”

~+~

“Good news, Tseng! Me and…” Zack’s voice trails off and he stares at Cloud expectantly. 

Cloud lifts the infantry issue helmet off of his head and tucks it under his arm, sweat damp skin chilling instantly in the Modeoheim air. Zack’s eyes skate across his face.

“Cloud.”

Zack mouths his name a few times and Cloud’s ears warm, eyes dropping to the ground as Zack turns back towards Tseng and the trailing infantrymen. 

“Me and Cloud here are both backwater experts. Oh yeah!” Zack’s voice carries through the valley and Cloud can feel it reverberating in his chest. 

Tseng yells something in response but Cloud has no idea what it is. Zack’s laughter has set his heart fluttering until it roars in his ears. 

~+~

Cloud’s sprawled out, panting roughly as Zack joins him on the training room floor. The mats are thin and stick uncomfortably against his sweaty skin and he knows, face heating in preemptive embarrassment, that there will be a wet patch where he was resting once he finds the energy to stand. 

“That was _great,_ Spike.” 

Cloud turns his head against the mat to look over and finds Zack closer than he expected—a couple of hand lengths between them. There’s a pleased smile flirting across his mouth and it's endlessly charming. 

Cloud snaps his eyes up and away, neck burning. Zack skims his knuckles across the mat, stopping just shy of Cloud’s face and picking up his braid. His skin is dark against the pale strands and his thumb carefully brushes against the green wool laced throughout it. 

“Is this yarn?”

Cloud bites the inside of his cheek, a sudden twisting in his stomach. Nibel braiding has always been a point of pride for him. No one—besides his mother and the few elders that practiced the tradition—had expressed any interest before. 

“My mom taught me when I was little,” he says, growing in confidence at Zack’s attentive stare. “She told me that braids were used all over Gaia to communicate—social status, feelings, anything you want to be known with a glance. Nibel braiding uses wool.”

Zack hums, trailing his fingers down the length of the braid. “What does green mean?”

Cloud lifts his own hand to touch the braid.Their skin brushes and he swallows thickly and says, “It’s a wish for protection and safe journeys. My mom gave it to me the night before I left to enlist.”

Zack closes the small space lingering between them and covers Cloud’s hand lightly with his own. His belly swoops. 

When he was very small, Claudia would hold both of his hands in hers and swing him back and forth between her legs as she walked. His feet barely left the ground but it felt like flying.

“Seems like it’s done a good job keeping you safe. You keep practicing those longsword counters and _I'll_ need one of these!”

Cloud rolls his eyes, laughing lightly, and tries pushing Zack’s hand away—tries pushing the heat that’s creeping from his neck onto his cheeks _away_ —but Zack holds firm. That charming little smile is back.

“Seriously though, Cloud. You were great today.”

Zack’s voice is laced with pride and it seeps past Cloud’s shirt to his skin to his singing heart. His belly swoops. It feels like flying. 

~+~

Zack sits motionless on the bed in his quarters, hands white knuckled in the fabric of his pants. He’s staring dazedly at the wall in front of him where the buster sword is propped. 

Cloud is at his side. They’re pressed together and Cloud can feel the shuddering inhale that wracks his entire body. 

“What do I do now?” Zack’s voice is smaller than he’s ever heard it. Cloud swallows, shifts on the bed and tucks a piece of Zack’s hair behind his ear. His cheeks are wet and there’s a cut along his jaw that wasn’t there before, hastily treated with antiseptic and butterfly bandages. 

Zack starts slightly at his touch, his next exhale choppy and rough as he settles. Cloud moves his hand to the crown of Zack’s head and runs his fingers through the dark hair.

Each pass of his hand seems to temper the tremors in Zack’s shoulders. 

When he’d heard the news he’d tracked down the only Nibel merchant he knew of in Midgar. Now, he gathers a portion of Zack’s hair and begins weaving white wool into the black strands to create a mourning braid. 

“You carry on, like he wanted you to. And you carry his memory with you.” 

Zack exhales shakily, unfurls his fists and gently settles a hand on Cloud’s leg. “Okay.”

~+~

They’re perched on a short retaining wall in front of the barracks, watching the slow drip of the sun. The industrial lights lining the walkways of the barracks will power on shortly—a silent but effective enforcement of curfew—and Zack and Cloud will stretch out their time together until the very last second. 

It’s a steadily growing habit of theirs—lingering past the point of goodbye.

Cloud’s felt the weight of Zack’s attention grow heavier over the months; he’s noted the gentling curve of Zack’s smile, his lingering looks, his lingering _touches_. 

It terrifies him. 

It makes his heart sing. 

He’s always struggled with expressing himself and now isn’t any different. He doesn’t know how to voice the simmering emotions in his chest, the irresistible pull into Zack’s orbit. 

So, Cloud voices himself in one of the oldest ways he knows how.

They are going to depart for Nibelheim in the morning and Cloud is weaving the truth of his feelings as the sun kisses the horizon. 

“You ready to go home tomorrow, sunshine?” Zack’s voice is hushed, unusually so, and Cloud’s hands slow where he’s braiding dark red wool into black strands. Cloud ties a knot at the base of the braid, grazes his fingertips down the intricate pattern of hair and wool.

“Yeah. Can’t wait for you to see it.”

~+~

The sun is overhead when they step foot into Nibelheim proper. The villagers are out on their porches watching the parade of Shinra troops through their sleepy backwater town. Sephiroth and Zack are at the front, infantry following in tight formation. Cloud can see the back of Zack’s head, red wool bright against his dark hair. 

He can see Claudia past the sea of bobbing helmets, yellow wool still braided in her hair—a promise of reunion. 

Claudia’s scanning the partially obscured faces of the infantrymen and he grins when she lands on him. She takes a step towards him but is quickly intercepted by Zack. Cloud cranes his neck as far as he can and manages to see Zack looking over his shoulder. He spots Cloud effortlessly and calls him over, his bright grin chasing away the mountain chill nipping Cloud’s cheeks. 

Claudia comes back into view, gaze fixed on Zack’s profile. Cloud’s a handful of steps away and his hands tremble at the tear filled eyes that move from the braid in Zack’s hair to _him_. Her smile returns twofold and she rushes forward to crush him in her arms. 

“Oh, Cloud does he…?” Her voice is wet and she tries to pull him even closer. He meets Zack’s soft eyes over her shoulder and _melts_. 

“Yeah… I think he might.”

~+~

His first true moment of consciousness in five years is kindled by a repetitive glide through his hair which coaxes his pulse to waking. 

“You with me, sunshine?”

Opening his eyes feels impossible, but the warmth on either side of his face feels even more so. He peeks his eyes open to Zack hovering in front of him. 

“There you are…” Zack’s voice is as gentle as the thumbs brushing across Cloud’s cheeks. 

The room is dim, strips of light from the window stretching across the water stained ceiling. Zack’s eyes are glowing as he drinks in every little shift in expression and Cloud blinks, tries focusing despite the urge to squirm at the intensity of his attention. 

Zack looks a little worse for wear but no less handsome; his face is scratched, dark bruises blossoming along his jaw, and his hair is a tangled mess. There’s no braid, no _red_ , in sight. Zack’s watching him carefully but Cloud’s single minded now, lifts a trembling hand to the space where the braid used to be. 

Zack intercepts his reach and squeezes his hand reassuringly when Cloud frowns. 

“There’s a nice lady from Nibelheim who helped us get settled here—we’re in Midgar, by the way,” Zack’s huffs slightly and his soft touches fill the hollow space behind Cloud’s ribcage. “She’s been a big help. Helped me learn a little about Nibel braiding, too.”

Zack gently cradles Cloud’s hand in the curve of his own, washes Cloud’s palm with his warm breath, and sets it alight with the press of his lips. 

Cloud can barely breathe. 

Zack’s eyelashes are dark curves against his cheeks and his chapped lips catch on Cloud’s calluses as he presses one, two, half a dozen kisses into Cloud’s palm. 

“This nice lady…” Zack swallows, throat clicking. “This nice lady told me that in Nibel braiding, dark red is a symbol of devotion.”

“Zack—” 

Zack tilts his head back, eyes mako bright and lined with tears. He smiles crookedly and pulls the hand in his grasp up to his chest, unfurls it to lay flat against his heartbeat. 

“You told me how you _felt_ , you entrusted a piece of yourself to me, and I walked around with it for years with no _idea_. Nothing but my own wishful thinking,” Zack says, heart hummingbird fast beneath Cloud’s fingertips. The hand against his face shifts and collects a piece of Cloud’s hair. Zack lifts a nearly perfect Nibel braid into view—pale blond interwoven with dark red wool. 

“ _Zack—_ ” Cloud’s voice is choked, tears sliding down his cheeks and into his hair. Zack nuzzles his nose against Cloud’s and presses their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry it took me so long, sunshine,” Zack’s close enough that their lips graze when he speaks. Cloud doesn’t have the words but he realizes he doesn’t need them. 

He lifts his head and brushes their mouths together. It’s light, lasts less than a couple of seconds, but he drops his head back to the pillow utterly breathless. 

His belly swoops. It feels like flying.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> My twitter: [@brickmaster_p](https://twitter.com/brickmaster_p)


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